Semi-polar metabolites such as flavonoids, phenolic acids, and alkaloids are very important health-related compounds in tomato. As a first step to identify genes responsible for the synthesis of semi-polar metabolites, quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that influence the semi-polar metabolite content in red-ripe tomato fruit were identified, by characterizing fruits of a population of introgressio...

A mapping population consisting of 236 F2:3 families derived from the cross between two rice varieties, Gharib as female parent (with good cooking quality) and Sepidroud as male parent (with poor cooking quality) was used to analyze the quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with amylose content (AC), gelatinisation temperature (GT) and gel consistency (GC). A total of 105 single sequence re...

Drought stress seriously challenges wheat production and productivity. Grain biomass (GB) related traits were assessed under drought non-stress for 285 185 durum genotypes, respectively, in field climate chamber experiments to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL). Significant correlations between estimated trials observed (p < .001). Genotyping with the 90 K iSelect single nucleotide polymorp...

Heterosis plays a decisive role in maize production worldwide, but its genetic basis remains unclear. In this study, we explored heterosis for ear-weight (EW)-related traits using a North Carolina Experiment III design (Design III) population derived from the elite maize hybrid Zhengdan 958. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis was conducted based on phenotypic data collected from five enviro...

Chromosomes (Chr) 10 and 16 of the Dahl salt-sensitive (S) rat harbor quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for blood pressure (BP). To facilitate gene discovery of these QTLs, gene profiling based on microarrays was combined with fine QTL mapping to identify potential candidate genes that are differentially expressed. First, the region harboring the BP QTL on Chr 16 was narrowed by comparative congen...

The genetic dissection of complex traits plays a crucial role in crop breeding. However, genetic analysis and crop breeding have heretofore been performed separately. In this study, we designed a new approach that integrates epistatic association analysis in crop cultivars with breeding by design. First, we proposed an epistatic association mapping (EAM) approach in homozygous crop cultivars. T...

Quantitative plant disease resistance is believed to be more durable than qualitative resistance, since it exerts less selective pressure on the pathogens. However, the process of progressive pathogen adaptation to quantitative resistance is poorly understood, which makes it difficult to predict its durability or to derive principles for its sustainable deployment. Here, we study the dynamics o...

Growth is a complex trait determined by the interplay between many genes, some of which play a role at a specific moment during development whereas others play a more general role. To identify the genetic basis of growth, natural variation in Arabidopsis rosette growth was followed in 324 accessions by a combination of top-view imaging, high-throughput image analysis, modelling of growth dynami...